The Kansas Supreme Court released the following published decisions today:

This Rush County case is a quiet title action where, by deed, the grantor conveyed two tracts of real estate but retained the mineral interests for a "period of 20 years or as long thereafter" as minerals may be produced, a common practice in the oil and gas industry.The Supreme Court held the common law rule against perpetuities did not apply to void the grantee's future interest in the minerals.

In this case originating from Sedgwick County, Sartin sought to correct an illegal sentence, arguing that his five prior out-of-state convictions were improperly classified as person crimes for criminal history purposes during sentencing. The Court of Appeals ruled that one of his prior convictions was properly scored as a person felony, but declined to consider the merits of the challenge to the other four convictions, finding that the inmate had not properly preserved those arguments. The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed the classification of the single prior conviction as a person crime, finding that the sentence was legal when it was pronounced in 1995 and that the inmate was relying on subsequent U.S. Supreme Court caselaw which was not decided until years after his sentence became final. However, the court remanded on the remaining four convictions with directions for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits, finding that the statute allows a challenge to the legality of a sentence "at any time," including for the first time on appeal.